MICROSOCIETY - CURRENCY

To help us understand the importance of currency, Year 5 were allowed to bring in sets of Monopoly so that they could play the board game at school. After playing the fun game, Rigel class had a vote to decide the name of the currency. There was a choice of Rigos and Rigells, Oras and Orrions, Oras and lumps and a few others. At the end of the vote, the class decided that their currency should be Oras instead of pounds and Orrions to replace pence. But all money needs a banker so there was another vote for a banker. It was between Stewart and Katie. In the end, Stewart won because of his suggestion to put stamps on the money that only the bank had access to so that no one could forge the Oras and Orrions. Although Stewart's idea was a good one, Katie also had a smart idea to prevent forging. She said that if she became the banker she would cover the money in a differrent material that only the bank had access to. Now that the class had found a banker, all that Rigel had to do now was to make their money. So each table had to design either one Ora or one Orrion. When they had finished, Rigel gave their designs to Mr Woods so that he could go and photocopy them. The next part was the tricky part. How much money should the citizens of Rigopolis start with? After many conversations, it was finally decided that each person would be given 200 Oras to start with and then only time will tell if they will earn more money through their businesses or if they will lose it from their needs...

By Sasha Mortimer Rigel